Tuesday, 17 February 2015 from 18:30 to 19:30 (GMT)

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Following two successful lecture series, on the rise of Asia and its impact on the Western world in 2012-13, and on the role of fear in contemporary geo-politics in 2013-14, we are delighted to welcome Professor Dominique Moisi back to King’s College London for 'What Went Wrong?', a new series analysing the current state of near planetary chaos. In this third series, Professor Moisi will focus on the underlying causes of the current negative evolution of the international system. As he will argue, 'only by looking for deeper roots can one suggest how to repair a broken world'.

Lecture 1: Introduction/What Went Wrong with the United States?

Since Nine Eleven, America seems to have moved from too much certainty to too many hesitations. Is the 'American Dream' over or is it much too premature (and dangerous) to speak of the ineluctable decline of the United States?

Speaker: Professor Dominique MoisiProfessor Dominique Moisi is a founder and senior advisor at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), a professor at Institute d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), and has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London from 2012. He is also a regular contributor to BBC News, France 24, Foreign Affairs, Project Syndicate and the Financial Times. Professor Moisi’s highly acclaimed book, ‘The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope are Reshaping the World’ was published in 2009.

The 'What Went Wrong?' series

25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall one has to ask oneself hard questions. What went wrong with our dreams of a world pacified by democracy? What went wrong with our dream of a Europe reunited by a common geography of values? What went wrong with our dream (or was it always an illusory dream?) of the Middle-East transcending its core Israel/Palestine conflict? What went wrong with the hope that a new and stable multi-polar system would be consolidated with the appearance on the world scene of the emerging powers? In retrospect, everything seems to have gone astray everywhere. Are our dreams dead, or can they be reactivated? Were they based on pure illusion or reasonable wagers? What would it take to switch from a culture of fear to a culture of hope? How does one re-instill confidence in a world dominated by so many doubts?

The present sense of chaos dominating the world is the result of the encounter between multiple factors. First, the process of globalization has led to a process of fragmentation. The quest for ever narrower identities has been the defensive response against an ever more interdependent world. And this has led in turn to a growing geographic and political instability. Second, we live in a period of transition between two international systems. The United States, fatigued and discouraged by two failed military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan and in an enlarged Middle East, has given up on its role of global stabilizer. And the emerging countries, foremost among them China are not, (not yet?), ready to translate a newly gained economic centrality into a corresponding international responsibility. These countries are too obsessed with their own internal considerations.Third, the world is confronted with a major leadership problem in a time of exceptional crisis. Unexceptional, and even at times mediocre, leaders are at the helm everywhere, from the United States to Europe, from Europe to the Middle– East, not to mention Africa, Latin America or even Asia.